1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intermediate transfer body for transfer inkjet printing and a transfer inkjet printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
The transfer inkjet recording method, one of known printing techniques, is a recording method in which ink is ejected by an inkjet recording method onto an intermediate transfer body coated with reaction solution to form an intermediate image and then the formed intermediate image is transferred to a recording medium to form a transferred image.
Every image-forming apparatus for this transfer inkjet recording method has an intermediate transfer body for carrying an intermediate image. An example of the intermediate transfer bodies for known transfer inkjet recording schemes is that made of elastic material. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-169634 has proposed an intermediate transfer body containing silicone rubber exposed on its surface.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-169634 states that an intermediate transfer body containing too soft a silicone rubber exposed on its surface may be pressed by the pressure generated during the image formation process to a greater extent than necessary and that this may cause defects on the resultant image. This publication also states that too hard a silicone rubber may inhibit the transfer of the image to a recording medium having a low surface smoothness and that this may affect the quality of the resultant image.
The transfer inkjet recording method can be used as a printing technique for producing many kinds of prints in a small number of lots only after its compatibility with a wide variety of recording media and the quality of the prints produced with it have been improved. If one wants to optimize the hardness of the rubber coating the intermediate transfer body, however, they will face a trade-off between this purpose and the requirements mentioned above and find it difficult in some cases to achieve these all. The present inventors have regarded to eliminate this trade-off the related art has faced as an important task.